


The Great Game?

by Brownhairandeyes



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF John Watson, Discworld References, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2555642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brownhairandeyes/pseuds/Brownhairandeyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Shades is the darkest part of London, full of the things that lurk in the night, and hosts the race they call "the Great Game". Moriarty overhears Sherlock using that moniker for his little puzzles and decides to introduce him to the real thing. And who better than John Watson to be participate in the demonstration?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Game?

Sherlock is in a panic – not the average person's pacing or crying or hysterics (because God forbid that Sherlock act normally) but the supreme stillness that results from diverting everything to finding a solution for this problem that Sherlock does not like!

John sighs; he should have guessed that this would happen, that Moriarty would eventually target him – the weak spot – for the final pip. Although, John reflects, he would have thought that a kidnapping deception with a liberal adding of Semtex would be more his style (the small part of brain that still clings to normality points out that he is criticising a psychopath’s methods – a bit not good). 

Jim must have finally gotten round to researching the darker parts of John's past or had simply overheard Sherlock calling his little puzzles “the Great game” and decided to include the real thing to teach him a lesson.

Either way, Sherlock's panic seemed to be reaching critical levels – John should better intervene before he froze into a Sherlock shaped statue forever, which would, John mused, be much cheaper in cab fares, window repairs and milk shopping...

But no, instead John took pity on him.

“Sherlock, do you know where I grew up?”  
“John, the information is irrelevant at this moment in time – somewhere in London. Now please let me concentrate on saving your life!”  
“The shades.” John took a small amount of satisfaction in watching Sherlock Holmes being completely surprised; it was not a common sight after all! But to be fair, who wouldn't be surprised when informed that quiet, peaceful Doctor John Watson used to live in the darkest (quite literally due to the warren of unregulated building – nowhere else in England did council inspectors get the equivalent of danger pay) , dirtiest, most violent place in the UK. 

John had to admit he had hindered any realisation by carefully maintaining his sculpted personal of harmlessness or unimportance that he'd developed when he was a child (most children don't think in terms of survival tactics). And the fact that he had been prevented from using his knives, coshes, elbows, forehead or teeth properly (that is to say, without mercy) since basic training had cramped his style somewhat and effectively disguised that basic violence that children of the shades gain in their quite real fight to survive.

The reason John had brought this up at all, and to be honest he would much rather leave that of pack of wolves in the past, was the statistics.  
Citizens (using the term in the loosest possible sense) of the Shades were 15 times more likely to enter the games, 50 times more likely to survive and contained the only 5 participants (mad enough) to enter for a second time.

The great game is the ultimate danger thrill, more suicidal than Russian roulette and most definitely illegal – it is urban legend and nightmare and horror story and unfortunately very very real.  
It consists of a race across London through the shades. If you win you get the modern equivalent of 500 crowns. If you don't the question never comes up. You get an hour's head-start. There aren't winners as much as survivors and never too many of them either. If you make it you could pay off your mortgage, start a small business, afford to feed the children better. But you are betting your life against the worst of the things that lurk in the city. The monsters that live in the shades because they hate the light.

It's never used for suicide because the bodies -if they're ever found – are always in pieces and the Morticians (once they stop vomiting) say that the bites, the amputations, the burns were all performed while the victim was still alive and able to feel it. The real monsters don't like being challenged.

The police only enter the edges of the Shades with full riot gear in squads of no less than 6 , one to cover each approach (including upwards) and one to perform their job so investigations into the games never get far. The longest surviving members of Sherlock's Homeless (not Holmes’s' because children of the shades are never completely left the darkness, they never serve just one master) are veterans of the Shades.

Sherlock pales as he processes this. The way John spoke in relation to the games suggested experience not fear...  
“How many times?” his voice is bleak, almost a croak, not really wanting to know how close John has gotten to death.  
“Twice.” John watches Sherlock wince. The second time they don't give you a head-start at all, the third time – it is rumoured – they will give you a handicap (literally).  
“First time was when I was... must have been about 13, my Mum had the birth certificates but calenders were hard to get hold of. Harry had got into trouble with one of the gangs, she had to pay within 20 days or they would own her. The shades still practice slavery. Oh the police can never prove anything.”  
John's voice was cold now, shards of brittle ice forming every syllable “but it happens. There was no way – even by selling the house – that she could pay it off and they meant it to happen that way. Because she was young and pretty and they would get a good price.” John was lost in his memories now, Sherlock realised, he probably wasn't aware he was giving away so much.

“I couldn't let that happen. She was my sister.” And if he had John knows he would have been marked as an easy target, he probably wouldn't have made it out of secondary school. “I was young and desperate and determined. And lucky. I survived and the gang let her go. The second time was for the outprice and for med school.” John was slightly more aware now, Sherlock realisied, likely to stop talking is he interrupted but he asked anyway; he had to understand this new information about his friend to assimilate it fully.

“The outprice?”

“Oh, I forgot you were an outsider. The outprice is a combination of... an old fashioned dowry and... a bribe. It costs money to raise a kid, to pay for food, clothes – money that could have gone to the gangs instead. Also you owe them for allowing you education, freedom of movement, relative safety. You buy yourself and your skills from the Shades, the society that owned you and raised if you want to leave.

'Course, if you work for one of the big groups you pay less but most medical schools disapprove somewhat of children of the Shades already and a criminal record would have closed my case for sure. The first time I was lucky – they concentrated on the elders because they didn't consider me as a threat or much fun. I didn't stand and fight, I ran and his and ran and was very fortunate. The second time I was older and a little wiser; I developed strategies, trained and partnered up with someone as fast as I was. A good partner in the game is a gift. I was lucky there again, he only tried to trip me twice before he accepted that it probably wasn't a good idea to make an enemy of someone with access to many surgical implements and very steady hands. I survived.”

“Say what you like about the shades, it shapes you tests you. It tries its best to break you but if you survive you are stronger for it. I know my limits; I know and grew up with some of the monsters in the shadows. If Mycroft had grown up there instead... instead of a government laboratory right?”  
“Close enough.”  
“He gave us some time right?”  
“”Five hours to say goodbye””  
“Talk about melodrama, but it works to our advantage. Well, I know where I can get some supplies... can you get me some peppermint or other oil, the stronger the better and thinking about it some decent seriously thinned soled quality running shoes in my size.”  
“Of course.”  
“Then, the game is afoot!”


End file.
